Hurricane Rates Fitted to the Poisson Distribution, as Evidence of Climate Change

This 2020 Atlantic hurricane season set the all-time record (back to 1851) for named storms (30), and had the 2nd most number of hurricanes (13) and major hurricanes (6, 7-way tie for 2nd) (both of these records held by 2005).

One year does not make a trend - so the larger question is whether hurricanes/named storms are a Poisson process, and can we can use the Poisson distribution to determine whether recent years are exhibiting an increased trend. This has been shown mathematically, and the criteria certainly seems to fit tropical systems, just like it does with shark attacks:

The Poisson distribution arises in connection with Poisson processes. It applies to various phenomena of discrete properties (that is, those that may happen 0, 1, 2, 3, ... times during a given period of time or in a given area) whenever the probability of the phenomenon happening is constant in time or space.

The key part here is "probability of the phenomenon happening is constant in time" - is the probability of a hurricane/named storm increasing over time? 

In each chart, I'll present two comparisons - one over the entire HURDAT history of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic (1851 to now), and another just in the satellite era, which is 1967 to now. While NOAA undergoes extensive reanalysis projects to fill in past years prior to satellites, it is still very possible that more storms are named today due to increases in data and technology, including satellites:

To account for this, I'll do both 1851-Now and 1967-Now (satellite era), across:

• Named storms
• Hurricanes
• Major Hurricanes (Category 3 or Higher)
• Accumulated Cyclone Energy - ACE (more on this later)

The Rate of Voter Fraud is Too Low To Have Swung the 2020 Election

Before the 2020 election, I concluded that the rate of voter fraud was so low that it was extremely unlikely to affect the outcome - and the only scenario in which it could, would be if the election was unfathomably close - 2000 Bush/Gore close.

And that didn't happen. But the election was close in the electoral college, with 3 states once again deciding the presidency: Georgia (+0.3%), Arizona (+0.3%), and Wisconsin (+0.6%) account for 37 electoral votes, which would have resulted in a 269-269 tie, which would have almost certainly gone Trump's way (in effect, tie goes to the Republican, based on the current geographical distribution of votes). In fact, the margin in those 3 states was actually closer than in 2016 - making this election the second-closest (electorally), behind only 2000.

And with turnout at its highest since 1900, applying the estimated rates of voter fraud to the larger turnout and narrower margin... still doesn't swing the election. Updated close electoral college margins:

• 2020
• Deciding states: Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia
• Margin in deciding states (3): 43,809 votes
• Fraud estimate (Max): 31,679 votes
• Fraud estimates (Meta-Estimate): 1,415 votes
• 2016
• Deciding states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan
• Margin in deciding states (3): 77,744 votes
• Fraud estimate (Max): 27,357 votes
• Fraud estimate (Meta-Estimate): 1,222 votes
• 1976
• Deciding states: Wisconsin, Ohio
• Margin in deciding  states (2): 44,578 votes
• Fraud estimate (Max): 16,321 votes
• Fraud estimate (Meta-Estimate): 729 votes
• 2000
• Deciding states: Florida
• Margin in deciding state (1): 537 votes
• Fraud estimate (Max): 21,119 votes
• Fraud estimate (Meta-Estimate) 943 votes

Updated table, with sources:

Rate	1 in...	Equivalent in 2020	% of Pop Vote Margin	% of Electoral Margin	Source #
0.02%	5,000	31,679	0.02%	72.31%	1
0.007313%	13,675	11,583	0.007%	26.44%	2
0.00614%	16,284	9,727	0.006%	22.20%	3
0.002548%	39,247	4,036	0.003%	9.21%	4
0.0025%	40,000	3,960	0.003%	9.04%	5
0.0001713%	583,722	271	0.0002%	0.62%	6
0.0001%	1,000,000	158	0.0001%	0.36%	7
0.00009032%	1,107,143	143	0.0001%	0.33%	8
0.00008741%	1,144,093	138	0.0001%	0.32%	9
0.00006%	1,666,667	95	0.0001%	0.22%	10
0.00001%	10,000,000	16	0.00001%	0.04%	11
0.0000031%	32,258,065	5	0.000003%	0.01%	12
0.000002924%	34,196,797	5	0.000003%	0.01%	13
0.00000017%	588,235,294	0.27	0.0000002%	0.0006%	14
0.00000013%	769,230,769	0.21	0.0000001%	0.0005%	15
0.00089304%	111,977	1,222	0.0409%	1.57%

Source #	Source	Institution Type	Election(s)	# States	Date
1	Working Paper	Unaffiliated	2012	50	Oct 2017
2	Iowa Secretary of State	Republican Administration	2012	1	May 2014
3	White House (Trump)	Republican Administration	2016	20	Aug 2018
4	Washington Post	Newspaper	2016, 2018	3	June 2020
5	Brennan Center at NYU	University	2000 to 2006	50	Nov 2007
6	Arizona State	University	2000 to 2010	50	Aug 2012
7	Brennan Center at NYU	University	2016	42	May 2017
8	Reuters	International News	1998 to 2018	1	July 2020
9	Heritage Foundation	Conservative Think Tank	2000 to 2018	50	Oct 2020
10	MIT	University	2000 to 2018	50	April 2020
11	US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit	Federal Court	2000 to 2010	1	July 2016
12	Loyola Law School	University	2000 to 2012	50	Aug 2014
13	Washington Post	Newspaper	2016	50	Dec 2016
14	Kansas Secretary of State	Republican Administration	2010 to 2014	1	Jun 2015
15	US Department of Justice (W Bush)	Republican Administration	2000 to 2006	50	Apr 2007
	Estimate (Meta-Analysis)	Unaffiliated	All	All	Oct 2020

It then naturally follows that Biden's popular vote margin is nowhere close to the above fraud estimates:

Election	Popular Vote MOV	% of Margin (Max)	% of Margin (Estimate)
2020	7,059,800	0.45%	0.02%
2016	2,984,757	0.92%	0.04%
2012	5,081,900	0.50%	0.02%
2008	9,550,176	0.27%	0.01%
2004	4,078,211	0.59%	0.03%
2000	530,893	3.98%	0.18%
1996	8,203,716	0.21%	0.01%
1992	5,805,339	0.29%	0.01%
1988	7,077,523	0.26%	0.01%
1984	16,878,120	0.11%	0.00%
1980	8,423,115	0.19%	0.01%
1976	1,683,247	0.97%	0.04%
1972	17,995,488	0.08%	0.00%

But turnout was historic, as noted earlier - is that evidence of fraud with so many more voters than four years ago? The number of votes jumped 15.8% compared to 2016! Which... is not even the highest increase in the past 20 years: from 2000 to 2004 there were 15.87% more votes cast.

The 2018 midterms had a historic rise too, gaining 44.7% compared to 2014. So how many more voters voted in the presidential election, relative to the most recent midterms? That turnout metric was up 38.9% compared to 2018! Which... is the lowest midterm-to-presidential increase since 2000. The next closest is 2012 (presidential) vs 2010 (midterms), which grew 48.8%.

In chart form, the record-breaking turnout doesn't even appear that out of line with recent trends:

No matter which trend is challenged, the conclusion holds: the rate of voter fraud did not change the outcome of the election.